rian De Palma’s 1976 film is a horror classic. Based on Stephen King’s debut novel, the brutally accurate portrayal of teenage savagery remains a cinematic touchstone to this day. De Palma underpinned the film with a love of brilliantly damaged characters but Mike Flanagan brings an entirely different tone to this modern revival series. He’s become the trustee of all things horror in recent years, entrusted with making sure the narrative legacies of , and live on. His ‘safe pair of hands’ energy runs through this new adaptation, swapping De Palma’s melodrama for muted-ness.
Carrie herself is played by Summer H. Howell as a sweet naif. Instead of Sissy Spacek’s unsettling presence, she is perky and wholesome, so lacking in damage you half expect her to break into a verse of anthem ‘How Far I’ll Go’ at any minute. More troublingly is that her legendary rage is stymied at every turn – whose decision was it to make her likeable?
The changes aren’t limited to the lead either. Carrie’s mother Margaret White, so monstrously played by Piper Laurie in the original, is transformed into a misguided protector. Turning to religion while still reeling from her husband’s death, she sees amorality wherever she goes. Samantha Sloyan embodies her with a hushed despair and the stern, slightly irritated look of a librarian when you’ve taken a book back late. The relationship she has with Carrie borders on sweet: it’s a narrative betrayal that cuts deep. The abusive mother-daughter relationship in the original is one of the factors that made it so resonant.
Flanagan has given the other key villain Chris Hargensen (Alison Thornton) a moral compass. She is acting out and reactive to her cold dad, who feels like he’s been written for . But this need to overwrite everyone and give very specific motivations for their actions is a misstep. What united Margaret and Chris in the original was their enjoyment of treating Carrie horrifically. The best horror movie characters, from s Norma Bates to Nubbins in the , are driven by pure sadism. The real horror is that some people just enjoy being monstrous.
The defanging doesn’t stop there: the famous ‘plug it up’ scene is initially played like an act of kindness gone wrong instead of a mirror into a teenage girl’s self-loathing, while Margaret’s prayer closet looks kind of… cosy? The lack of the Jesus doll with the glow in the dark eyes doesn’t help. The show’s dénouement, a commentary on cyber bullying, doesn’t feel either hugely original or even the most up-to-date reading of social media pile-ons.
It begs the question: who is this for? Certainly not horror lovers. Even fans of teenage dramas will be disappointed. The dissection of female friendships and cliques are not savage enough to rival or well-written enough to compare to . The final twist takes audiences into ‘is this really happening?’ territory.
In Flanagan’s notes, a lengthy three-page explanation of his adaptation which occasionally reads as a pre-emptive defence of the show, he says he sees not as a horror but a tragedy. The real tragedy is that he’s made one of the most electrifying cinematic characters in history so boring.
‘Carrie’ is out October 7 on Amazon Prime Video